


Not Quite Hope

by random_chick



Category: Re-Animator (1985)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-22
Updated: 2010-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-13 23:01:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/random_chick/pseuds/random_chick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daniel Cain's gotten good at pretending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Quite Hope

**Author's Note:**

  * For [angledust](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angledust/gifts).



Nobody knows about the two of them, and that's the way Dan prefers it, deep down and on the surface as well. It isn't that he's ashamed of whatever it is that he and West have, it's that...

Well, yes, it _is_ that he's ashamed of it, a little. And who can blame him? Because it's twisted and unhealthy and he knows it. He knows it and he hates it and yet he can't tear himself away from it. He's not entirely sure what West thinks about it, because Herbert's a hard person to understand at the best of times, and nowadays Dan's more than half convinced that the other man isn't at all sane to begin with. But they've got something, for whatever it's worth, and it's something Dan doesn't want to lose.

He's not so deluded as to think that it's love, or caring, or concern, or anything even remotely like that. It's a relationship -- for lack of a more accurate word -- that was born from loss and pain and grief, all of it Dan's. The only thing West cared about was that the results of his work and research hadn't gotten him the end result he wanted.

Not that Dan knows what that was. Even now, he doesn't know anything about the man whose bed he more often than not shares. Who he watches at night, after they've been together in an act that can only be described as fucking.

Who is looking at him now, hair rumpled and expression annoyed. It's... the same expression Dan would probably be getting no matter what time of day or night it was. It's pretty easy to get that look from West. It's his default expression for anybody he finds beneath him intellectually, which is just about everybody he's ever met. If one thing is consistent in the universe, it's Herbert West's confidence in his own intellect.

"Honestly, Dan, _what_ are you staring at?"

The man who's just caught him.

"I'm not staring at anything," Dan says, looking away, expression guilty.

"Bullshit."

"I was watching you," Dan admits. "But I was hardly staring."

West just looks at Dan for a minute, evenly and with no hint of emotion. That doesn't surprise Dan, actually; Herbert's not much for expression in general. Or at least not the more positive emotions. Disgust, annoyance, anger, these are the emotions one can generally see expressed on the man's face. The gentler ones? Never.

"Then what was on your mind to have you watching me so vacantly?" West asks, a hint of irritation in his voice.

"The usual."

Dan has by now learned to sum it up with those two simple words; they're all West cares to hear on it. Any further explanation leads to arguing and shouting and Dan feeling even more than ever that he's alone despite it all.

"Ah." West blinks once, twice, leans over to kiss Dan roughly. "Stop it."

And for a few minutes, Dan is only too happy to comply.

The kiss is rough, and the sex is rougher, and Dan doesn't care about either of those things. It's something to take his mind away from Meg, away from the life he could have had with her and the life he now has without her. A life where, instead of a loving wife he has a cruel roommate. The choice is an easy one to make, he would take Meg over West in a heartbeat. But the simple fact of the matter is that he can't choose Meg because Meg isn't there to choose. The reanimation had failed. Quite spectacularly failed, actually.

Though in his more rational moments, Dan can almost make himself face the fact that even if it had succeeded, he would not have a normal Meg at his side. A twitching, ravenous Meg chained up in the basement, possibly, but definitely not a normal Meg at his side. The time for that had passed with her death. And that thought hits him with a wave of pain as intense as it was the first time he had the thought.

Afterwards, when West is asleep and Dan is watching him again -- without the chance of getting caught again -- it's all Dan can do to keep from crying. Not because of his feelings for the other man, no. In fact, Dan isn't even entirely sure he _has_ any feelings for West that aren't rage or hatred. No, what he's moved to tears by is the whole overwhelming hopelessness of the situation he's found himself caught up in. And not for the first time does he find himself wishing he had chosen a different career path to pursue. If he hadn't been in med school, he never would have met Meg and this entire twisted thing never would have happened.

But at the same time, there's a tiny kernel of something inside that calls to him. It's not hope; he's pretty sure he doesn't have any of that left. But at the same time, there's a tiny little voice inside telling him to stop the angsting and move on to the dealing with it all portion of the program because really, there's only so much hopeless angsting he can do before he's too insufferable to live with and ends up finding himself tied up in the basement.

The tiny little voice has been spending too much time listening to West, apparently.

It's that thought that gets Dan to smile, really smile, for the first time in days. At that, something inside him lifts. Maybe not for long, but part of Dan knows to be content with whatever he can get at the moment; it's that part that he chooses to listen to.

It's that part that's kept him vaguely sane the past few months.

That part of him's not terribly rational at times, but Dan will take alive over overly rational right now. If it keeps him going, he'll be happy with it. Or pretend to be.

And he's gotten good at pretending.


End file.
